Total Instructional Alignment: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

We started our instructional alignment and preparation summer phase two weeks ago that I call "Total Instructional Alignment."  This is the first year we've gotten to do this here at MHS since I've been here due to Covid last summer.  Attached is a schedule of summer instructional staff developments, the ELA and SS pacing guides created for middle school, the PIA calendar created for alignment and monitoring, benchmark assessments, and the data spreadsheet for targeted small-group (data moves test scores).  This has generally been at least a three year process to get working and performing well with teachers (Year 1: Curriculum alignment, pacing, standards-based focus, common instructional framework - Year 2: Curriculum scope and sequence adjustments based on EOC/MAP/Benchmark data, data protocol in place with benchmarks and formative assessments, targeted small-group and RTI focus, blended curriculums to include literacy across all content areas, continue CIF - Year 3: Adjust curriculum scope and sequence based on date, adjust benchmarks and formative assessments, dial in RTI process, data utilization protocol, continue CIF).  

This will let us know that we are teaching what is tested and aligned to how students will be assessed, give us a way to monitor instructional pacing, give us a formative means of assessing and remediating, strategically target the growth component in the bottom 20%, and have an intentional and intensive RTI piece in place.  Benchmarks and formative assessments are created with Schoolnet so that we know the questions are vetted and aligned to standards at the levels they will be tested on EOCs based on DOK and they are uploaded into Mastery Connect for data collection.  MS ELA and Math are in year 2, everyone else here is in Year 1.  I've also included a student data-tracker that we created for students to be able to monitor their own progress on priority standards mastery this Spring.  

Once all teachers return in August, our PD will focus on a Common Instructional Framework, 5 basic components of facilitating instruction that we want to do effectively in all classrooms that we know will have the biggest impact (basically Zemelman with the blended curriculum piece already in place through the PIA process) that includes: Scaffolding Instruction (Gradual Release of Responsibility), Effective Questioning (Strategic Thinking, Formative Reflection/Assessment), Writing to Learn (Representing to Learn, Formative Reflection/Assessment), Classroom Talk/Collaboration (Collaborative Activity, Formative Reflection/Assessment), Literacy Across the Curriculum (Integrated Instruction, Classroom Workshop).  The four things within every school's control that move scores and enhance student academic growth the most are done in a continuous cycle of improvement.  These include Professional Development, Instructional Planning (standards alignment, sequencing, pacing, and instructional facilitation based on PD), Observation/Feedback (based on PD, Planning, and Data), and Using Data to drive performance.  A major focus this year will be on getting better at engaging students and using data to move numbers (standards and students).  

Equal Opportunity, Different Starting Lines

 As we do our data dives and end-of-year performance reviews to create the plan of action going into next school year, we are reminded that all children are different and have different starting points, foundational skills, learning interests, learning styles, etc.  Our systems give tests that measure both proficiency and growth.  Thank goodness we’ve finally started to focus on growth for every child.  Most people would think that I’m merely referring to students at the bottom that are significantly behind, but I’m also glad we are focusing on growth for the students at the top (identified as gifted and talented) as well as ALL students.  The goal of any public school should be to help ALL students grow and perform at the given maximum capacity.  Performance analysis used to look at primarily proficiency levels to determine the effectiveness of a school.  In this model, the focus is on moving the middle and bubble groups that can increase the proficiency number.  The students most often neglected or not challenged in this type of system at the students at the bottom, where people may feel like they aren’t able to reach proficiency in one school year, and the top, where it’s taken for granted that they will “pass.”  This shouldn’t be the goal of any school in just moving numbers.  Instead, proficiency numbers take care of themselves when we grow ALL students in a school. 

 

One of the arguments from teachers in many schools is that they have many students coming to them significantly behind or reading multiple years below grade level.  While it can’t be used as an excuse for failure, we do have to acknowledge that it is foundationally true.  The great thing is that it isn’t detrimental or “hurt” a school when our focus is on growth and we are held accountable for primarily growth.  This goes back to comparing “equal versus equitable.”  Equity versus equality has been a long debated and scrutinized comparison in education. The key is to provide the least restrictive environment with the appropriate supports needed for success. For many years, people have come up with new and different ways of providing or facilitating education. Instructional leaders have researched and sought after the models that would give them the solution to increasing student achievement and raising test scores. One premise has held true to the test of time……one size doesn’t fit all. We do know that research says that most factors and actions taken in education have some validity in raising test scores. That’s the good news. The fact still remains that every child sitting in our classrooms are very different. We can use research to design programs, methods, and actions that generate the greatest gains in student achievement, however there are differences for each child. The phrase “Do We All Have a Pair of Shoes or Do We All Have a Pair of Shoes That Fit?” is borrowed from a great superintendent in South Carolina that uses that phrase to discuss meeting the needs of all children.  Do we try to fit all children into a one-size-fits-all approach or instructional strategy?  Or do we realize and put into practice that every child learns differently and sometimes requires different methods and vehicles to get to the finish line?  Do we take into account that they all have different starting lines and it's our job to get them as far as we can as fast as we can?  

 

Shifting from proficiency to growth and from equal to equitable requires a fundamental shift in thinking and the way we look at performance and data.  I’ve seen a school that was at 80+% proficiency with a growth rate of -1 and a different school with 45% proficiency and a growth rate of +4.75.  Who did the better job teaching and learning?  Which one had the most significant instructional impact that school year for children?  Which school would you send your child to?  Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need.  It means that every school does everything they can to reach every student every day!